Deep-End Discipleship

Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”  The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water?   You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave this well to us, and he drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.” John 4:10-14 CEB As I’ve noted before, the Gospel of John stands out among the gospels. One of the ways that John is different is found in this chapter and the story of the Samaritan woman. From the beginning of this story in John 4:4 to the end in John 4:42, the Samarit...

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being…The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it… And the Word became flesh and lived among us…” John 1:1-5 and 14 NRSV The Gospel of John is rather different from the other three gospels, which we call the synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke all share similar stories about Jesus, so much so that we can put them side by side and see parallels. This is not the case for the Gospel of John. In this season of Advent, we hear a lot of scripture from the Gospel of Matthew and of Luke, as these two include some type of birth narrative about Jesus. Matthew tells us about the Magi visiting the infant Christ, while Luke tells the majestic story of the heavenly host coming to tell the shepherds about the birth of Christ. Both of these texts...